Now What?
by IamJaneen
Summary: Chat Noir starts visiting Marinette. He finds out more than he was expected one night. I think this might be complete, but who knows.
1. Now What?

**Now what?**

Marinette had managed to create yet another akuma. This was really becoming absurd. She'd accidently stumbled into someone on the street, just like always. This person had spilled his beverage on himself and was currently in the process of turning Paris into a giant splash zone, complete with floating ice cubes. Thankfully, Chat Noir had shown up and grabbed her right before she had become yet another ice cube bobbing along the streets of Paris. Ok, so her partner wasn't totally useless. Ok, fine, he was pretty awesome. He whisked her into a room at their school. Let's face it, it was pretty obvious by this point that they went to the same school, she just tried not to think about it. He'd told her it was nICE to see her again, but that maybe she should stay here while he and Ladybug mopped up this akuma.

The fact that she had managed not to face palm at his terrible pun gave her great pride.

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Chat Noir couldn't believe it. This was like the 8th or 9th time an akuma had specifically targeted Marinette. What was up with that? His classmate was so sweet and thoughtful, it must have been yet another misunderstanding, just like with Reverser. With as sensitive as she was, she was probably not taking this well. He decided to stop by and check on her.

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That night she was hanging out on her balcony when Chat showed up.

"So, what brings the great Chat Noir here tonight? Not another akuma out to get me, I hope." Really. Hawkmoth seemed indefatigable and her excuses for disappearing were getting lamer and lamer.

"Not at all. I just wanted to check on you. I couldn't help but notice that this is like the 8th or 9th akuma out to get you, and I just wanted to make sure you were taking it ok."

"That's really sweet of you, but I swear, all I did was trip into that guy. It wasn't like I was intentionally mean to him like Chloe would have been or anything."

"I didn't think you were. And Chloe's been getting better…"

They wound up discussing Chloe and her possible personal growth, their favorite and least favorite akuma's (a conversation Marinette found herself dancing around in, trying to be as honest as possible without giving too much away) and before she had realized it, half an hour had flown by.

Suddenly Chat Noir made a goofy expression. "Ummm, can I borrow your bathroom for a little while?"

"Sure. We don't have any camembert. Can I get you anything else?"

"How did you know about camembert?"

Whoops! How could she not know about camembert? It's not like the average teenage boy asks the mayor of Paris for some stinky cheese to go to the bathroom. Something like that just kind of sticks, but really, MARINETTE should not know that. Time to hustle past the question.

"How about cheesy bread? My dad served some with dinner tonight, but we have some leftover."

"Sounds great."

Marinette led him down to the kitchen, handed over the cheesy baked goods, and pointed him in the direction of the bathroom. She sat down and started in on the game of UMS III that she'd left unfinished earlier. When Chat Noir came out of the bathroom, he plopped onto the couch next to her and started a full running commentary on her game play.

"Would you care to join me for a round? Then you can take your own advice and stop giving it to me."

"Ha, ha, funny girl. Prepare to lose."

Three rounds later and Chat was fake crying while rolling on the floor.

"Come on you silly Chat. It's time for you to go home and lick your wounds in peace."

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By the time Adrien swung through his window and detransformed, he was exhausted. When he'd planned to visit Marinette, he'd been thinking it would be like a thirty-minute visit. It had never crossed his mind that he would have wound up staying there for over two hours. Or that he would have needed to recharge Plagg in order to get home. Twice. And what had Marinette said about camembert? He couldn't remember, just that something there wasn't right. Plagg seemed delighted with the cheesy bread anyway.

Adrien flopped down on the bed and let his mind roam. He'd had a really good time tonight. Marinette was so much more…unguarded around him when he was Chat Noir. And it wasn't just him. He'd already recognized that she treated him differently than pretty much everybody in their class except Chloe. Not to say that she treated him the same as Chloe, she didn't. Just that they seemed to be the only two exceptions to the kind, confident, warmness that Marinette exuded to everyone else. She was even more open to Chat Noir than she was to the rest of the class, including Alya, and that made him wonder. Perhaps she just felt safer around him because he was a super hero. It made him proud to be able to earn her trust like that.

He wandered if they could hang out like this again? She seemed to have fun trouncing him at UMS III.

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A week later, to her great surprise, Chat Noir was knocking on the trap door from her balcony.

"To what do I owe the honor tonight? That akuma today had nothing to do with me!"

"Believe it or not Miss Snarky, this super hero of Paris was just thinking he could hang out with a friend. I brought some anime for us to watch? Or maybe we could play some video games together?"

While she thought hanging out like this was probably (ok, totally) a bad idea, the thought of Chat Noir being lonely did NOT sit well with her. If he needed a friend to hang out with, she'd be his friend. I mean she was his best friend after all, time to act like it. And it wasn't like she could just transform, and they could go somewhere together and chill. So she found herself sharing a bowl of popcorn with Chat while they watched anime, and sadly, she was getting sucked in. And not just by the anime, much to her chagrin. He was just too funny to watch.

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And the next thing she knew, they were hanging out two or three times a week. They would work on homework together, both conveniently not noticing that they had the same assignments, or play video games, or watch anime or movies, or just hang out, her drawing or creating, him flipping through comics, discussing anything that wasn't too close to the identities there were both still trying to protect. One night they spent WAY too much time watching anime and they wound up accidently falling asleep together. They woke up, both blushing like crazy, Chat said something essentially incoherent, and then vaulted out of her trap door. Well, Marinette thought regretfully, all good things must come to an end, and, let's face it, it was probably for the best anyway. So she was shocked when he showed up the next night. He was at his most chivalrous, he apologized, and he suggested setting a curfew to avoid future incidents. Marinette honestly could have thrown herself into the Seine because, totally against her will, what popped out of her mouth was, "Do we have to?" There might have even been a little bit of whine in it.

Chat Noir's mouth popped open, a blush started to creep up his cheeks, and he hastily shoved a pizza box, with a movie on top, and a bow on top of that at her. "Maybe pizza and a movie?" he managed to squeak out.

They settled in, teasing and talking, and Marinette woke up in the morning unable to remember Chat Noir leaving. Oh, well. After that it just became a thing. Almost each time he would visit, he would stay the night, disappearing before she woke up. Traitorous as it might be to her efforts to keep a professional distance between them (not that he knew she was Ladybug) and definitely hedging into an area that even she couldn't claim was strictly platonic (when did she start dreaming about him instead of Adrien?) it was nice. It felt safe to have him so close by, and she loved his unique scent, and he was so warm. There was a rightness to it.

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To Adrien's utter delight, he'd found himself hanging out with Marinette regularly. It had taken a little bit of finesse (read: gratuitous use of puppy dog eyes, whining, and pouting), but he'd definitely been able to lure her into his anime addiction. He'd rapidly found out that they complimented each other when it came to school work. Where he could recall facts, had excellent grammar, and excelled in anything related to formulas, she made connections across curriculum, generated ideas regardless of subject, and was quick to relate facts to big ideas and concepts. He found that he was spending less time doing homework and his grades were going up at the same time. Plus, he just genuinely liked being around her. She was funny and sassy and her general vibe just welcomed him in.

The first night he accidently fell asleep, practically on top of her, he was so embarrassed! What kind of gentleman (or gentlecat as the case may be) does that? He was convinced that he was going to be kicked out, charged with sexual assault, imprisoned after a long and humiliating public trial, and die alone, cause Ladybug sure as hell wouldn't tolerate that kind of nonsense. So when he went to apologize and try to fix it (because no way was he giving up these evenings with Marinette without a fight), he was blown away when she essentially _approved_ of him spending the night.

But given that approval, there wasn't much that could keep him away. His house was as sterile as possible. It made hospitals look welcoming. And let's face it, the overwhelming sense of being alone constantly ate at him. To be able to go over to Marinette's, where it was cozy, and warm, and inviting and to hang out with another person who would tease him, and laugh with him, and just be there…it was addicting. And to fall asleep next to someone, well, there were no words. And on top of all that, for that someone to be so open, and cuddly, and smell so fabulous (seriously, he thinks the smell of the bakery must have worn itself into Marinette at the cellular level). Well, until she said he wasn't welcome, he was going to lap it up.

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This morning's akuma had been particularly scary for him personally. Each person hit by the akuma's spell was trapped in a cage. Every few minutes, the cage would shrink a few inches. A prison cell, growing tighter and tighter with the passage of time. It was like it was taken from his own personal nightmare. From his life before he became Chat Noir. He and Ladybug had managed to defeat the akuma in record time (He'd only wound up missing part of 1st and 2nd period). But of course, not before he'd been caught in one of the cages. It had taken a great deal of personal strength to NOT cataclysm the bars as soon as he was caught. Ladybug had grabbed the cage, called for her Lucky Charm, and kept up a constant stream of puns as she dragged him to the giant gavel the akuma was dispersing "justice" with. As soon as the akuma was cleansed and the city set right, she'd hugged him, apologized, and disappeared. It was like she knew how much he hated being trapped. It had been weird.

After the terrifying akuma and the weird attentiveness of Ladybug this morning, it was a given that Chat Noir would be visiting Marinette that evening. They had quickly finished up their homework, played a round of UMS III, and then Marinette had excused herself to get ready for bed. Chat, finally having unwound after the weird day, had crawled into bed and passed out. He awoke in the middle of the night to Marinette's terrified voice.

"Watch out, Chat Noir!"

He looked around, but the night seemed peaceful. Just as he turned to look at Marinette again, she hissed, "Be careful. I can't do this without you!"

Suddenly she jerked in the bed and her eyes flew open. "No!"

And suddenly it hit him. She wasn't talking about some unseen terror attacking in the night. She was having a nightmare.

"It's okay. I'm right here. Everything is okay." he whispered reassuringly.

Marinette studied him for a minute, then closed her eyes and fell back onto the bed "Did we get the akuma? I, I was so worried. I thought you were caught in one of those cages! I know how much you hate to be trapped."

"My Lady?

"Yes?"

"Ladybug?"

"Out with it, Chaton."

WHAT?

He was stunned into silence. It was a good thing that Marinette drifted back to sleep, because he wasn't sure he'd be able to keep up any kind of coherent speech as he tried to process what he'd just learned.

Marinette was Ladybug. Now that he thought about it, it seemed absurdly obvious. Blue-black hair in pigtails, check. Beautiful blue eyes, check. Passionate in the defense of others, check. Soul deep kindness, check. Insanely creative, check. The list could go on for miles. He had, completely without realizing it, befriended and then essentially moved in with his partner. Well, he always knew he had good taste. But now what?


	2. Wait for it

AN: I do not own Miraculous Ladybug or any of their characters, but I adore them anyway!

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He laid back on the bed and tried to come up with a list of his options. He needed to let Marinette know that he knew, but he was concerned she would be upset. And it would only be fair for her to know who he was too, since he knew her secret. He wasn't able to get very far in his ruminations, before unconsciousness took him. He woke up to the blaring of an akuma alarm. He shook Marinette.

"Wake up!"

Marinette rolled away from him.

"There's an akuma. We need to go."

Her eyes barely fluttered.

"Where's your kwami? You need to transform."

Nothing.

Suddenly, a red kwami with big blue eyes and black polka dots floated up beside him.

"Let me help, Chat Noir." Her chirpy little voice surprised him.

The kwami flew over to Marinette and squeaked out, "You're going to be late for school, again Marinette!"

Marinette sat up ramrod straight in bed.

"Sorry, it's really an akuma. You know what to say!"

Marinette called out, "Spots on!" and was bounding out of the hatch on her roof as a cloud of pink engulfed her. The last thing Chat Noir saw was a red foot with black spots pulling up through the hatch.

Whoa!

Even knowing, that was a lot to take in. Still, time to go. He bounded out of the door and chased after her, headed to the akuma. The akuma was, thankfully, only a few blocks away. When it had been cleansed and the city set to rights, the duo met for their customary fist bump. Ladybug smiled at her partner. "Man, it was like you were right on my heels on the way over here, Kitty. I don't know how you got to me so fast…" her voice trailed off as it dawned on her exactly why Chat Noir had been right behind her. Her face turned white.

"You didn't go home last night, did you?"she whispered.

Chat Noir shook his head. "Sorry. I really didn't mean to find out. I've got to go now, or I'll have to face something worse than an akuma at home. But don't panic! Everything is going to be okay. I'll see you at school."

With that, he gave a two fingered salute with his trademark smile and vaulted off into the city.

He focused on just getting home. When he did, he began his regular routine, but his mind was whirring. Marinette was Ladybug. That seemed so, well, duh! And he'd been spending tons of time with her. That was very gratifying. He knew that Ladybug had always said they were friends, but this, this was proof. She really was his friend, twice (three times?) over it turned out. And he loved her. Which was a great relief, actually. He'd never thought about it before, but of course he loved Marinette. But she loved someone else. He couldn't help but wonder who had managed to steal her heart. Regardless, now was the time to worry about _her_. Knowing LB, she would be freaking out that he had discovered her identity, worried that she had put them at risk, scared that she had given Hawkmoth some kind of advantage over them. Time to work on a plan to keep his partner from having a melt down today, before they could properly talk it over.

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Marinette was not freaking out. She was totally not freaking out. Chat Noir knew who she was. She trusted him not to go blabbing to anyone, but… Uhggg!

She really wanted to know who he was and she wanted him to know who she was. It would be nice to have someone who knew all about her and understood how bizarre all of this was, but, was it smart? And he had always respected her wishes about their identities, and she's the one who went and totally BLEW IT! What had she been thinking? Now Chat Noir knew that Ladybug was Marinette and…

If he got akumatized Hawkmoth would know both their identities and start targeting their friends and family, and…..and….and…..

Well, she really couldn't come up with what terrible thing would happen then. Which was weird, because normally she could really work herself into a tizzy about a worst-case scenario. Seriously though, Hawkmoth already targeted her friends. She couldn't count the number of times Alya had been taken hostage, used as a sacrifice, or otherwise threatened by an akuma. She had definitely saved Adrien a shocking amount of times as well. And clearly had Dad had been akumatized as well. So maybe it didn't really matter? Still, she felt this was uncharted territory and it made her nervous. Maybe Chat Noir would have some insight into it that could help them out.

Tikki said, "That's impressive, Marinette! You didn't spiral down into nonsense! Now let's get headed to school!" And off they went.

When she got to school, there was a note stuck to her locker door. She opened it up.

 _It's going to be okay! Stay calm! I know you wanted that to be a secret, and I PROMISE I will keep it a secret. It was totally an accident. I'll tell you about it later. Our enemy has no advantage. I would have come to your aide no matter what, no matter what you were wearing, so it's not like he has extra leverage. And he doesn't know. I'm the only one who knows, and I was already keeping a pretty big secret myself. It's going to be okay._

It was unsigned, but it was pretty obvious that it was from her partner. That was really pretty thoughtful of him, even though she'd already decided that she was going to shove the whole situation to the side of her mind for the day anyway. And it turned out to be pretty easy to do, too. Her classes went fine, great actually. Alya was disappointed about missing the early morning akuma attack but had been able to secure an interview with a witness that saw it, so she was in a decent mood. It was always interesting to Marinette to hear what happened from someone else's perspective. Nino seemed really tired and was trying not to nod off most of the morning. Adrien kept glancing at her and sending her little smiles, so all in all, it was pretty easy to focus on her surroundings, instead of fretting over her gigantic mistake this morning.

When she came back from lunch, there was a ridiculously cute post card taped to the tabletop at her spot. It had a black cat dangling from a set of bars in a playground with the caption, "Hang in there!" on it. She couldn't help but giggle, it was so classic Chat Noir. On the back it just said, "You're doing great! I'll see you this evening and we can talk then."

How did he even know how she was doing? Was he skipping school to vault over here and try to cheer her up? Or, and she really was trying to repress the thought, did he go here? It wasn't like she hadn't noticed that they had corresponding assignments. And what had his parting words this morning been? DON'T THINK ABOUT IT! Just then Nino and Adrien entered the classroom and Marinette realized she couldn't just keep standing in the aisle wondering about her ridiculous partner. She sat down and readied herself for class, but as class wore on, she realized she might have overlooked something this morning. Her big fear with her identity getting out wasn't because Hawkmoth would be able to target her friends and family magically. It was that he would be able to come at them as his civilian self-and they would never see him coming. The temperature in the classroom seemed to be dropping dramatically. To the point where Alya nudged her and whispered, "What's wrong? You look like you've just seen a ghost. You've even got goosebumps."

Marinette looked down. Her arms were covered in gooseflesh. And she couldn't shake the sudden fear. She stood up quickly. "I'm sorry Miss Mendeliev, I think I'm going to be sick." Grabbing her bags, she hastily left the classroom. Adrien looked at Alya. Alya raised her shoulders in the universal expression of, "I don't know." But Adrien knew. The panic had finally hit. So he claimed that he was needed to confer with his bodyguard on a critical safety issue, and hustled out of the class. (AN: French schools must be WAY more lenient than Texas Schools. And cooler.) He'd just made it to the stairs when he saw her sitting under the opposing staircase.

"Hey Marinette, what's going on? I got the impression when you left class that you weren't really sick?"

"You're right, I'm not sick, but my stomach is all twisted up in knots. I did something really stupid this morning, and now I'm afraid that everyone I care about is in danger."

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Can you just sit with me for a few minutes? I've attracted akuma's before so I'm working really hard to be in charge of my thoughts."

Adrien's brain went on standby. Ladybug had almost been akumatized before? That did not bode well for him. Or the city of Paris. Or earth, for that matter. Adrien's look of surprise was not lost on Marinette. "You've attracted akuma's before?" Marinette just nodded.

"You know, I think we're the only two in our class who haven't been akumatized. I guess I never even thought about them coming after you. I didn't know people could resist them."

"I take it that means that you've never had one come after you?"

"Not that I know of."

Marinette hummed, and Adrien found himself wondering what it meant. He desperately wanted to just tell her, right now, but between them being at school and her working hard right now to control her emotions, he figured it was better not to. So he sat, and waited. She managed to pull it back together very quickly. No wonder she'd been able to ditch prior akumas. He wondered if this was a Ladybug thing, or a Marinette thing. He suspected the latter. He really needed to talk to her. To tell her. To reassure her. But now was not the right time. He would just have to wait for it.


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